This disclosure relates to television advertising.
Television advertisers have many options for airing their advertisements during a television broadcast. For example, an advertiser can purchase airtime (e.g., through an advertisement auction) to direct its advertisement to a specific advertising target(s) (e.g., air the advertisement during a particular television program, on a particular broadcast network, or during a certain time period). The determination of which airtime or advertising target to purchase can greatly influence the effectiveness of the advertisement airing. For example, if the advertiser is advertising an energy recovery supplement then it is likely an advertisement for the supplement airing during a sporting event broadcast will be more effective than that same advertisement airing during a non-sports related program. The effectiveness of an advertisement or an advertising campaign can be measured in myriad ways. For example, one measure of ad effectiveness is a result-per-thousand-impressions metric, such as the number of calls received by the advertiser or an increase in web traffic for the advertiser as a result of one thousand impressions of the ad.
Advertisers sometimes have a cost goal for each advertising target that indicates the acceptable cost to the advertiser to achieve a desired result for an advertising target. For example, the desired result may be a sale of a product or a telephonic inquiry from a consumer. The cost goal can be measured on a per-unit basis, e.g., an advertiser may have a cost-per-call goal for the advertising target.
Many advertisers participate in advertisement auctions through which the advertisers place bids for the opportunity to air their advertisements to or on particular advertising targets. By varying the bid amount an advertiser can alter the likelihood that the advertisement will win the auction for the advertising target. As such, an advertiser may be willing place higher bids for advertising targets that will be more effective at realizing the advertiser's advertising goals (e.g., a specific cost-per-call goal). Unfortunately, it is difficult to translate the advertiser's desired advertising goal for a target into an auction bid to realize that goal.